18. The Global Climate Observing System - Summary for IOGOOS

GCOS Secretariat

BACKGROUND

The Global Climate Observing System was established in 1992 to ensure that the observations necessary to address climate-related issues are defined, obtained and made available to all potential users. GCOS is co-sponsored by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO), the Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission (IOC) of UNESCO, the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and the International Council for Science (ICSU).

GCOS is intended to be a long-term, user-driven, integrated operational system capable of providing the comprehensive observations required for monitoring the climate system, for detecting and attributing climate change, for assessing the impacts of climate variability and change, and for supporting research toward improved understanding, modelling and prediction of climate. It addresses the total climate system including physical, chemical and biological properties and atmospheric, oceanic, hydrologic, cryospheric and terrestrial processes.

GCOS stimulates, encourages, co-ordinates and otherwise facilitates the taking of the required observations by national or international organizations and agencies in support of their own requirements as well as of common goals. It provides an operational framework for integrating, and enhancing as needed, in situ and space-based observational systems of participating countries and organizations into a comprehensive system focussed on the requirements for climate issues. GCOS is an end-to-end system ranging from observations to quality control, to archive and access, and to providing an essential foundation for climate analysis and the provision of climate products.

GCOS builds upon, and works in partnership with, other existing and developing observing systems such as the Global Ocean Observing System (GOOS), the Global Terrestrial Observing System (GTOS), and the Global Observing System (GOS) and Global Atmosphere Watch (GAW) of the WMO. It also draws upon proven networks established under research programs such as the World Climate Research Programme (WCRP) and the International Geosphere-Biosphere Programme IGBP). GCOS is a member of the Integrated Global Observing Strategy (IGOS) Partnership, which brings together the global observing systems, satellite agencies (through CEOS, the Committee on Earth Observation Satellites), sponsors and funding agencies, and international research programmes to address the observational needs of global environmental issues in an integrated and coherent framework.

The strategic development of GCOS emphasizes the need to foster ownership by national governments in its implementation, to strengthen partnerships with existing observational systems and to build indigenous capacity and overcome deficiencies in regions where these are most needed, all the while ensuring that GCOS is implemented in a cost-effective manner and remains clearly relevant to user needs.

GCOS is directed by a Steering Committee which provides guidance, coordination and oversight to the programme. Three science panels, reporting to the Steering Committee, have been established to define the observations needed in each of the main global domains (atmosphere, oceans, and land), to prepare specific programme elements and to make recommendations for implementation. The GCOS Secretariat, located at the WMO headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland, supports the activities of the Steering Committee, the panels and the GCOS programme as a whole. It can be reached at:

GCOS is an application-based observing system concerned with observations across all domains of the climate system. It therefore draws on its domain-based partner observing systems to provide those components of their networks, both in situ and space-based, which are focussed on climate applications as a contribution to GCOS. Thus, for example, the climate components of WMO/GOS, GOOS and GTOS are, or contribute to, the atmospheric, ocean and terrestrial components of GCOS, respectively. Key GCOS networks identified to date are listed below.

GCOS Networks

Most of these networks will provide the long-term, high-quality, consistent observations which are considered by GCOS to be the baseline components of a global climate observing system. GCOS also seeks to identify and include other available data for assimilation in both atmospheric and coupled atmosphere-ocean models as components of a comprehensive system.

The 1992 UN Framework Convention on Climate Change and its 1997 Kyoto Protocol commit Parties to promote and cooperate in the development and maintenance of systematic observation systems needed to monitor the climate system and the impacts of climate change and to reduce the uncertainties related to them. GCOS is the recognized mechanism through which this will be achieved.

In 1998 GCOS, on behalf of the observing systems for climate including GOOS and GTOS, presented an ‘Adequacy Report’ to the Fourth Conference of the Parties (COP) in Buenos Aires, outlining the status of the global observing systems and highlighting their deficiencies. Continuing interaction between GCOS and the UNFCCC has resulted in several COP decisions relating to research and systematic observation of the climate system. In particular, Decision 5/CP.5 (COP-5, Bonn 1999) adopted the ‘UNFCCC Reporting Guidelines on Global Climate Systems’ which had been developed by GCOS, and requested Parties to use these guidelines in reporting on activities in relation to systematic observation as part of their regular ‘national communications’ to COP. That decision also:

• Invited the GCOS Secretariat, in conjunction with the UNFCCC Secretariat, to synthesize and analyze the information submitted by Parties in response to this request and report back to the COP;
• Urged Parties to address deficiencies in the climate observing networks and, in consultation with the GCOS Secretariat, to bring forward specific proposals for that purpose;
• Asked the GCOS Secretariat, in consultation with relevant regional and international bodies including the GEF, to organize regional workshops to identify the priority capacity-building needs of developing countries to participate fully in systematic observation.

GCOS is actively responding to these requests through a number of initiatives, including the launching of a Regional Workshop Programme and the development of a second report on the adequacy of climate observing systems for presentation to COP in 2003.

GCOS REGIONAL WORKSHOP PROGRAMME

Following the request from UNFCCC/COP-5, and in line with its overall implementation strategy, GCOS has initiated a series of regional workshops aimed at identifying the capacity-building needs of developing countries and initiating processes that will lead to real and substantial improvements in the observing systems for climate. The GCOS Regional Workshop Programme is comprised of ten workshops to be held between 2001 and the end of 2005 in different developing regions. Workshops have already been held for the Pacific Islands, Eastern and Southern Africa, Central America and the Caribbean, and East and Southeast Asia. A workshop for the South and Southwest Asia region is tentatively scheduled for 2004.

The objectives of each workshop are to assess the current status and deficiencies of the observing systems in the region; to identify regional and national needs for climate data, including needs for assessing climate impacts, conducting vulnerability analyses and undertaking adaptation studies; to assist participants in understanding and using the UNFCCC guidelines for reporting to COP; and to initiate the development of Regional Action Plans for improving climate observing systems. Action Plans are currently available for the Pacific Islands and for Eastern and Southern Africa and are under development in the other regions in which workshops have been held.

The Regional Workshop Programme is a part of the UNDP / GEF National Communications Support Programme and receives support from the Global Environment Facility. GCOS must raise matching funds from individual donor countries and international organizations on a workshop-by-workshop basis.

The UNFCCC’s Subsidiary Body for Scientific and Technological Advice endorsed the preparation of a second report on the adequacy of the global climate observing systems at its November 2001 meeting in Marrakech. The report, under the overall direction of the Chair of the GCOS Steering Committee (SC), is currently being drafted by an international team of lead and contributing authors.

The purpose of the ‘Second Adequacy Report’ is to advise the UNFCCC Parties on the monitoring capability of the current and planned observing systems and their adequacy in meeting the needs of the Convention and then to identify priorities for maintaining and improving the global climate observing systems. The recommendations on systematic observations from the IPCC’s Third Assessment Report will be important inputs. The Report will:

• Determine what progress has been made in defining and implementing climate observing networks and systems since the first Adequacy Report for COP-4;
• Determine the degree to which these networks meet with scientific requirements and conform with associated observing principles; and
• Assess how well these current systems, together with planned improvements, will meet the needs of the Convention.

The Report will build on a compilation and synthesis of available national reports on systematic observation but will utilise data and information on operational and research observing systems from all available sources, such as national, regional, and international organisations. The Report will also address new developments and emerging opportunities, such as the increasing capabilities shown by satellite systems to provide long-term, calibrated climate observations, and new techniques for integrating global in situ and satellite observations.